


runaway until the last time, we’re gonna lose forever

by reachedthebitterend



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Doctor Who Fusion, Angst, Episodic-like Chapters, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, More like an AU based on River and the Doctor, Rescue Missions, Sort Of, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel Shenanigans, murder mysteries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26240401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reachedthebitterend/pseuds/reachedthebitterend
Summary: Michael has a ship that can travel in time and space, and somehow he keeps meeting Alex in the wrong order.
Relationships: Alex Manes & Isobel Evans, Maria DeLuca & Michael Guerin, Michael Guerin & Alex Manes, Michael Guerin & Charlie Cameron, Michael Guerin & Isobel Evans, Michael Guerin & Liz Ortecho & Kyle Valenti, Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 11
Kudos: 37





	1. one.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [el_gilliath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/el_gilliath/gifts).



> for my darling tove 🖤, hope you enjoy this as much as i'm enjoyed writing it!!

The message reads,  _ need your help, asap, aubergine star system, bring the stun gun  _ along with a date and coordinates.

Michael is only curious because no one should have been able to send him a message while he's in the middle of the time vortex, especially not a message sent directly to him, the old fashioned way, appearing in the mail slot, especially when he hasn’t even told anyone that he’s not planning on coming back home for a while.

At first Michael thinks that maybe it's a future version of himself asking for help, but if it was, there were easier ways to send a message to himself.

He gets to the coordinates easily, and finds himself at the foot of a giant mountain, littered with the ruins of an ancient civilization.

It's night time, and eerily silent for all of ten seconds, while Michael looks around where he’d parked his ship, a clearing in the forest that tapered off at the base of the mountain, before a loud roar rips through the air, too guttural to be an animal, rippling through the leaves on the trees to his right.

Before Michael can berate himself for getting caught up in something that is most definitely dangerous the first time he lands on a new planet, someone is running into the clearing.

Michael barely gets time to take in the stranger, dressed up in off grey camouflage, that seemed to blend in perfectly with the coloring of these particular forests, dark messy hair, kind of greying at the temples, on top of a face that Michael is sure he would never forget, brown eyes widening in surprise and shining with happiness and relief as he seems to recognize Michael, a look that knocks all of the air out of Michael’s lungs. No one has  _ ever  _ looked at him like that before. Like seeing him,  _ just _ seeing him was enough to make them feel safe.

“Hello husband,” he says in a low, husky voice that hooks right into Michael’s gut, making him freeze completely, as the stranger practically swaggers closer, a look on his face like he’s trying to look mad, but just can’t quite manage it. “You are late.”

Before Michael can clarify who exactly he’s talking to, the beast Michael had heard roaring lands with a loud thump right behind them, shaking the ground a little.

Michael looks over the confusing stranger’s shoulder, and sees what looks like an ape, except it has much longer arms, and is about twice the size of a gorilla, wearing what looks like a belt, keeping a club at its side, a spear in its hand.

It yells, the sound ripping through the air, enough to make the stranger stagger into Michael.

Michael’s eyes drop back to him as he grabs on to Michael to keep his balance, hands seemingly touching Michael everywhere from his hips up to his shoulders in a way that makes Michael freeze, but the stranger just smiles at him, eyes half lidded, hair hanging over his face.

“Thanks,” he says, and then he’s turning, and in his hands he has the stun gun that Michael had brought with him as requested, even though he hadn’t planned on handing it over.

The stranger shoots the ape creature as it moves to run at them. He gets him three times in the chest, the stun gun making a loud whirring sound between each shot.

The ape creature roars and then falls backwards, unconscious.

The stranger lowers the gun and sighs. 

“I told them we’d need a way to protect ourselves, but it was all,  _ no Alex, we’ll disrupt the natural progression of an ancient race _ ,” he says, the last couple of words in a higher pitched, mocking voice, while he turns to Michael and then he smiles, soft and a little wondering, eyes darting between Michael’s.

“Wow,” he breathes. “You look so young. How early is this for you?”

Michael feels even more confused.

“Definitely before the wedding bells, since you looked surprised about the husband bit, but, surely not before-”

“Captain! We said no weapons!” a commanding voice calls out from the other side of the clearing as a group of about a dozen or so soldiers comes crashing through, holding makeshift weapons in their grasp.

The captain, or Alex, Michael guesses, rolls his eyes and pushes the stun gun on Michael’s chest.

Michael grabs it as Alex turns towards the newcomers, and puts it back in the holster.

“And I told you professor that they would whittle our group down to a quarter before the night was through, and would you look at that,” he says looking around pointedly.

The professor, who had yelled, a man who looks much older than the soldiers standing at attention behind him, who had a commanding presence, but was obviously not a soldier, looks from Alex to Michael, and his fingers clench around the makeshift spear in his hands.

“And who is this?”

Alex moves to stand in front of Michael, covering him from view. “He is none of your concern.”

The professor opens his mouth to speak, but Alex speaks over him, “No, I promised your crew safe passage and you disobeyed my rules and got most of them killed. Now, you hired me for a reason, because I am the best at my job and if you want me to keep your no weapons policy then I'm going to need him."

He inclines his head towards Michael at the last word and Michael tries not to feel like he's missed a huge step somewhere and tries to look as menacing as possible.

"Fine," the professor says. "We'll do this your way."

Alex smiles, "Hear that fellas. Plan B is a go. I'm going to need half of you to set up camp, and the other half to set up a perimeter. Professor, I'm going to need to take a closer look at this map of yours to find a better way inside the tomb. And Guerin, I'm going to need you with me."

He tosses something at the professor who is looking at him with exasperation before he turns back to Michael, "Get the coffee running and we'll sync up, and then go over the plan."

Michael watches him go with the professor over where the soldiers are setting up a canopy with a long folding table underneath where they're unloading equipment, and he debates for all of two seconds before he goes back inside of his ship.

He hesitates in the hall before he walks down to the rec/dining room towards the back of the ship. His head is yelling at him to go, but something low in his belly is too fascinated by the enigma that is this Captain Alex to actually listen.

He finds himself making coffee and setting two mugs down, and he had just sat down at the table when Alex walks into the room, looking through an old and battered leather bound book in his hands.

He sits down across from Michael, and frowns when he looks up and sees his mug.

He shoots Michael a confused look, like he'd been expecting Michael to know exactly how he takes his coffee, and Michael watches carefully as he puts three sugar cubes and stirs the coffee carefully, before sliding it back over to his side.

"Okay so, where are you exactly, because I'm having trouble placing you, and from the look of it, it's also before the Atlantis Cruise-" He cuts himself off as he looks up into Michael's face.

Michael doesn't know what kind of face he's making, but it must be bad enough to knock the smile off of Alex's face.

"The way you're looking at me right now," he says, slow and easy, like he's in front of an easily startled animal. "Like you have no idea who I am. Why are you doing that?"

The question is more of a demand, but something in his eyes tells Michael that he knows exactly what Michael is going to say now.

Michael just pushes his mug further away, not even taking a sip, "Because I don-"

"Shut up," Alex says sharply, raising a hand, and shutting his eyes tightly.

Michael's mouth closes with a click, and he stares at Alex who breathes in and out, shaky but deliberately even.

He opens his eyes and looks right at Michael, "Please tell me that you know who I am."

Michael feels his chest ache with the words, how Alex's voice cracks, how he looks so vulnerable and open, like he's not afraid to show this side of himself to Michael and Michael wishes with all of his might that he didn't have to say the words that he has to say.

"I'm sorry," Michael says, voice low and apologetic. "But I have no idea who you are."

Alex stands up at that, and he shakes his head and then turns around, facing away from him like he's trying to temper his reaction.

Michael wants to ask him if that means that Alex knows him, in the future, if he actually keeps traveling and doesn’t go back home. Not that there was much of a home for him to go back to.

But before he can say anything, there is a buzzing sound and then the comm goes off.

"Captain," a voice calls out, staticky and small. "We've got the map in place."

"Good," Alex says, sounding cool, calm and collected when he had just been ready to fall apart. "I'll be right out."

He turns back to face Michael slowly, and his face seems impassive, like it’s hiding behind a mask, and Michael hadn’t realized just how open and honest his face had been, until it wasn’t.

“How long have you been traveling?” he asks, sounding almost mechanical.

Michael wants to ask what that has to do with anything, but instead he just swallows hard, and shrugs a little. “Not long.”

“How long exactly?” Alex demands, impatience cracking through his facade.

Michael stares at him for a few seconds, at the desperation edging into his eyes, and decides to give him a break. “A couple of days. Not enough to meet anyone, really.”

Alex breathes out a disbelieving breath and then he’s moving forward to grab the book he’d walked in reading.

“We’ll be going over the plan in a few minutes, but please, don’t rush on my account,” he says, tucking the book beneath his arm, and then walking away without another word.

Michael watches him go, and he thinks once again about leaving, seeing as whoever this Alex is, they obviously were expecting a different version of Michael, but something deep in the pit of his stomach tells him that if he leaves now he’s going to end up regretting it.

-

“What are we doing here exactly?” Michael asks as he walks up to the table where Alex is pointing at things on a map.

“That’s classi-”

“We’re robbing a tomb,” Alex replies, grinning when Michael looks up at him in shock, unable to keep the intrigued look off his face. "And not just any old tomb, but one locked in time."

Michael blinks at him a few times. That explains the bump and turbulence he felt landing here. It wasn't just the atmosphere, but the presence of a time lock.

“What exactly have you gotten me into?” Michael asks, not meaning to sound accusing, but the words come out that way.

Alex barely rolls his eyes before he turns back to the map in front of him. It’s the professor that answers his question.

“With the backing of the Fargo cooperation, I have been searching for the Beta Codex, the missing link needed to aid in translating the oldest language of the universe. With it we’d be able to decode any language and any code in existence.”

Michael turns from the professor to Alex who hasn’t looked up from the map, and he drums his fingers on the table, almost like a nervous tic, before he clears his throat and lifts his hand up, lifting the cover of his watch and looking down.

“It should be another few minutes before the creatures converge on us so we need a plan of attack,” he says, looking first to Michael then the professor, and then back to the map.

“The safest place is inside the tomb, and this is the fastest route to get there.”

“There is the little matter of the time lock,” Michael says, because it’s no small feat to break into one, and at the worst case scenario it could end up making the time surrounding the planet rigged and impermeable, making it impossible to travel back into this time.

"Getting inside the time lock is the easy part," Alex says confidently, smirking when Michael throws him a surprised and skeptical look. "What will be much harder is getting out before my rig breaks and makes it impossible to open again."

Michael's incredulity overtakes how impressed he is. "A rig? You can't rig a time lock."

Michael may not have had his ship for a while, but he read all of his mother's books, enough to know that there is only one way to open a time lock.

"There are only two ways to open a time lock," Alex says, voice pitched even and slow like he's a teacher. "One is to be there at the same time and place it was created, since the only way to open it is to stop it from closing in the first place. Or you can tear it open."

"You really can't," Michael counters, and Alex just pulls something out of his many pockets and tosses it at Michael.

It's a small black box with some sort of pattern that Michael doesn't recognize etched on all sides. It's heavier than he thought it would be for something that fits in the palm of his hand, and it seems to be buzzing slightly, like there is something inside that wants to get out.

Michael looks back to Alex who moves towards him as he starts to speak, an excited look on his face like he's been waiting to talk about this with someone all day.

"It's a paradox, contained inside a quantum field in a parallel universe," he says holding his hand out, and Michael sets the box down on his hand slowly. 

"There's a biolock on it," Alex says reassuringly, before he tosses the box up and catches it, smiling when Michael jolts forward to catch it, unable to help himself. "The point is that I open it, and it'll tear a hole in the time lock just big enough to let us through to get what we need and then get back out."

Michael stares at Alex for a moment, eyes wide, and then he shakes his head, "Just like that, huh?"

Everything about what Alex said shouldn't be possible, but Michael has read enough in his mother's books to know that many impossible things were possible if you're clever enough.

"Yep," Alex says smiling, and putting the box back into his pocket.

Michael stares at him, something that feels a lot like awe bubbling at the back of his throat. "Who are you?" He asks, and he can't help the slightly reverent tone to his voice.

Alex's face shutters a little, and he gives Michael a lukewarm smile before looking away, "I'm afraid you have to wait and figure that one out yourself."

Michael shakes his head, pushing the wonder he feels at this person aside to try to act rational. Like his father would want him to.

"What's to stop me from leaving right now?" Michael asks, and Alex goes still. "You haven't exactly given me a reason to stay, and I don't know how you did that trick with the letter earlier, but it's not enough of a mystery to keep me sticking around when there is a whole universe out there waiting for me to-"

Alex moves to face him, and tugs the thin leather cord he's wearing around his neck, pulling the pendant out from beneath his shirt.

This time Michael is the one that goes still, staring at the pendant, feeling his heart beating too hard.

The pendant is a piece of glass that looks smooth like it's been smoothed out by water and rough sands, but Michael knows that it was the heat from the exploding engine when his mother's ship crash landed on earth.

Michael knows the shape and feel of it well, and he has to lift his hand to his chest to press over where the pendant is currently resting over his heart, just to make sure that he was still wearing it.

He wants to ask Alex how he has it, but something tells him that Alex isn't going to be answering any of his questions any time soon.

"You told me once that if you ever doubted me to show you this," he says pressing his hand over the pendant in the same way that Michael is doing it. Michael's eyes move from his hand to his face, and Alex's eyes are wide and honest and not hiding anything as he looks straight back at Michael.

"You can leave if you want," he continues "But you don't actually want to. And not because you want answers, but because thirty-two people are dead and our chances of making it out of this alive increase with you, because you may not like it right now but you're good at this, and if there is one thing I know about you is that your mother raised you to always help if you're able to. So I'm asking you please, help me."

Michael's eyes dart all over Alex's face, and while he knows that his mother would've been mad that he got himself involved in something that was bound to be dangerous, he also knows that she would've been more upset if he could've helped and decided not to.

Michael inhales carefully and then leans one hip against the table, "I still want answers."

Alex nods his head, tucking the pendant back underneath his shirt. "And I promise you, you will get them. Eventually."

Alex grins at him, and then turns to the professor, but before he can say anything there is a burst of static coming from his comms.

"Perimeter breach! North-East corner! Perimeter brea-" the voice is cut off and then there is a loud roar, and everyone turns in the direction that it came from and Michael can see the leaves rustling.

"Time to go," Alex says. "Take what's important and leave the rest behind."

"Husband," he says, turning to Michael, and giving him a grin, when all Michael does is give him an exasperated look. "I'm going to need that stun gun."

-

Michael follows Alex through the forest, just far away enough that if he makes any sudden stops, Michael will be able to stop in time, but also close enough that he's not in direct line of sight with the creature running after them.

Michael turns to make sure that's still true, and trips over a tree root, falling on his face spectacularly.

He's moving to push himself to his feet when he feels the creature land right above him, before he can.

The creature roars loud and victorious and Michael feels something sharp and deadly pressed to the back of his neck.

"Hey Caesar!" He hears Alex yelling. "Why don't you go to sleep for another thousand years?"

And then the sound of the stun gun going off, four times this time before the creature falls backwards.

Michael scrambles to his feet, and looks back at the creature and then back to Alex who waves at him to hurry up.

"Caesar?" He asks as he gets to Alex.

"Seemed appropriate," he says, and when Michael just keeps staring at him he rolls his eyes. "Planet of the Apes?"

Michael blinks at him, licking his lips. "You're from earth?"

Alex gives him a confused look, and then he looks behind Michael and the roar rips through the air the next moment.

"Talking later, running now," Alex says and turns and runs, and Michael follows after him.

By the time they make it to the ruin where the tomb is, Michael knows that they're running out of time, and that if Alex opens the time lock, and the creatures follow them through, then there's a very big chance that that they'll all get stuck inside of the tomb for the rest of forever.

"We need to block them off from the tomb before we try to open it," Michael says, reaching out to stop Alex from going anywhere.

Alex looks at him, no trace of doubt or hesitation, "What do you need me to do?"

Michael huffs out a small disbelieving laugh, "I got this. Just keep them back."

Alex nods like he knows what Michael is going to do, and moves towards the others, making them all step backwards.

Michael shuts his eyes tight pushing everything happening to the back of his mind, and then he breathes in deeply, and it's like the entire world goes silent and still, and then Michael opens his eyes breathing out.

There is a large stone slab leaning against the side of the wall, too big and too heavy and too embedded in the wall, with roots and vines growing around it.

Michael reaches out with one hand, and with an almost careless gesture, makes the stone slab tilt and cover the only exit.

There is a lot of noise and a lot of dust, and once it all clears, Michael takes another deep breath feeling a little weak, and a little bit sick to his stomach.

"Here," Alex says, holding a flask out for him. Michael wants to be surprised, but he's really not, when he tips the flask into his mouth and it's acetone.

"How did he do that?" Michael hears the professor demand, voice shaking a little, and he feels a frisson of fear.

There was a reason that Michael waited so long to actually go out into space, a reason why he wanted to stay away from any kind of trouble.

His people weren't exactly welcome, anywhere in the galaxy. 

Antarians were an old people that once ruled over galaxies, but were dragged down kicking and screaming from the throne.

There were still sectors out there fighting for their right to rule. But overall, the Antarians were mostly extinct.

"We're on a different planet, in a different galaxy, populated by sentient, primitive apes, and a little bit of telekinesis freaks you out?" Alex says scoffing and walking towards the others, not so subtly standing between them and him.

"What matters is that he bought us time, and now we have a tomb to break into."

The professor shoots Michael a distrustful look, that he extends to Alex, but instead of saying anything he turns and leads the way, asking one of the soldiers for a flare.

Michael hands the flask back to Alex as he walks past him, and Alex takes it without a word.

“How exactly do you know the professor?” Michael asks as they walk after the soldiers.

Alex shoots him a look out of the corner of his eye, “I don’t really. He’s just a man who needs a job done, and he’s paying me very well to do it.”

“So this is what you do?” Michael asks. “Raid tombs for money?”

“It’s more like a hobby,” Alex replies grinning. “A secret hobby. My old fella doesn’t like it when I put myself in dangerous situations.”

And then he’s moving towards the front of the group. Michael watches him go and finds himself wondering if something bad happens to Alex in the future that makes Michael disapprove of his hobby.

He forgets about it mostly when he feels the time lock.

Michael doesn't know how to explain it except to say that it's like the air molecules themselves are frozen, but also vibrating way too fast.

If he squints, he can just make out a sort of shifting, shimmering in the air in front where Alex and the Professor were standing, that is the time lock.

Michael feels the hairs at the back of his neck standing on end as a shiver goes down his spine.

He turns around feeling like someone is watching him, and then shakes his head, turning back in time to see Alex pressing his thumb on top of the paradox box.

“Alright,” he says, looking at the professor and then at everyone else. “We’re messing with time here, which time really doesn’t like, so it will try to right itself as soon as possible, so please don't linger. Let’s find what we’re looking for and get out because I’m not sure how long this will hold exactly.”

“We understand,” the professor says, speaking for everyone.

Alex’s eyes flicker over to Michael quickly, and then away.

“Good, let’s rock this joint,” Alex says, before he’s leaning down and placing the box right in front of the time lock.

Michael stares as the box starts to glow in blue pulses, lighting up the strange symbols, and then it moves forward, and stops right inside of the time lock, and there is a noise like tearing plastic sheets, before there is something that looks like a bolt of lightning, originating from the paradox box, splitting a crack in the air, all the way to the roof, and then it splits open, like a door, big enough for one person to go through.

“Okay, time’s ticking, let’s go,” Alex says, and walks inside, stepping over the paradox box carefully, but not fearing for his life.

The professor and four soldiers follow after him while the others stay outside, keeping guard.

Michael steps forward and when no one stops him, he walks quickly and steps into the tomb.

It feels weird to step over the paradox, sort of like how he imagines it would feel like to walk over your own grave, but it's manageable.

He looks around inside of the small room, full of statues and gold and other artifacts that should be worn down by age, but look just like they probably did the same night they set the time lock.

The professor and the other soldiers are searching through a group of chests, while Alex stands to the side, in front of a statue, head tilted to the side.

Michael walks over to him, looking at the statue he's staring at, and the odd thing about it is that unlike everything else in the tomb, the statue is corroded by age.

Alex is staring at the barely there face, and speaks when Michael stops right next to him.

"Does this statue look familiar to you?" He asks, turning to look at Michael.

Michael looks at the statue again, and while he feels like maybe he  _ should _ recognize the statue, he shakes his head.

"Not really," he says, turning back to Alex. "But didn't you say we don't have a lot of time?"

Almost like to back him up, there is a loud thump, and then a loud crack, like the creatures are hitting the barrier Michael had formed and were succeeding in getting inside.

"Right," Alex says, and then moves to help the professor.

Michael tries to help, but everyone ignores him, so he just looks around.

This isn't his tomb raiding, and he wouldn't go tomb raiding if he hadn't gotten the message from Alex.

Michael still wasn't sure where he was going to go or what he was going to do, all he knew was that he couldn't stay on that planet anymore. Not after his mom died. It was nothing more than a graveyard to him.

Michael stops when his gaze falls over a necklace, a gilded thing that looks like it might be worth more than anything Michael will ever see in his life again. The pendant is a locket, with a shimmering green jewel that reminds Michael of the way his mom's eyes used to shine in the sunlight.

"You can have it, if you want," Alex says, as he comes to a stop beside where Michael is standing in front of a small table heavy with golden trinkets.

Michael gives him an incredulous look.

Alex just rolls his eyes, "The professor is only here for the book, and it's not like anyone is going to miss it."

Michael looks back to the locket, and hesitates.

Alex doesn't as he picks it up, and holds it up to his face.

"Take it," he says, a sad smile on his face like he knows exactly why Michael wants it.

He hands it over to Michael, who still hesitates to take it.

"Consider it a thank you," Alex says, grabbing Michael's hand and dropping the locket into his palm before closing Michael's fingers around it. "For coming even though you probably had no idea what you were going to get yourself into."

Michael looks up at Alex who keeps his hands around Michael's for a second before he lets go.

"But now you'll be prepared the next time I ask for help," Alex says cheerfully, and Michael gives him an incredulous look.

"How often do you put yourself in danger?"

Alex just laughs, "You're gonna be asking yourself that for a long time. Come on. It's time."

Michael looks around to see that everyone is leaving, and the professor has something wrapped in cloth that he's holding close to his chest.

Michael nods and heads after everyone else, managing to get in front of two stragglers.

It's not until Michael passes over the paradox box that he hears another loud crack, and looks over to where the stone barrier is to see that they've almost got it split in half.

"We should hurry this up," Michael calls back to Alex, turning around to see Alex standing in front of the same statue from before.

Michael moves to the side to let the other two pass, and then it's almost like everything happens in slow motion, or Michael is just hyper aware of everything that happens in that moment.

The creatures manage to crack the stone slab enough that when they roar loud and pissed off, it echoes in the space. The two soldiers run out of the tomb, and the last man trips and stumbles and knocks the paradox box away from the time lock.

There is a sound best described as thunder being zipped up, and Michael watches as Alex jumps and turns around, taking a step backwards where he should bump into the statue, if it wasn’t for the fact that the statue disappears and Alex stands in its place, in the same exact position the statue was in.

Michael feels like an idiot. He’d studied this, and yet it went right over his head.

The reason the statue looked familiar was because the statue was Alex, an echo of Alex already trapped inside of the time lock.

There is a rip in the lock, getting smaller, and Alex rushes forward, towards it as Michael takes a step closer and reaches out with his powers, trying to see if he can grip the edges of the tear.

“You have to go,” Alex says, and his voice sounds like it’s coming from far away, through an echoey tunnel.

As soon as the words are out of his mouth, there is another loud crack as the creatures begin to try to get inside.

Michael hears the others follow the professor deeper into the ruins where there is presumably an exit, but Michael stays right where he is.

"Not without you," Michael says, gritting his teeth, still trying to find a grip. "I can widen the tear big enough for you to pass through. Give me a second."

The sound of the stone barrier giving way breaks Michael's concentration.

He feels the tear getting smaller and grabs on to it again.

"You don't have a second!" Alex yells, starting to sound panicked. "You have to go now, Michael! You don't die here!"

"How would you know?" Michael snaps. "Maybe I do."

"No!" Alex yells, and Michael's eyes snap open and he looks at Alex, who is staring right at him, eyes bright, sparkling with both tears and rage. “If you die here, it means that I would’ve never met you!”

Michael shakes his head. “Maybe it was always meant to happen this way.”

“No,” Alex says again. “You have to go! You have to live! You have to find me! My time may end right now, but you’re just at the beginning. You have so much more to do and to see and so many more people to meet. You are not going to die here. Please, you can’t.”

Michael swallows hard and looks down to the floor, and he sees Alex’s bag where he’d dropped it before going inside of the tomb, and he can just make out the book peeking out at the top.

“That book-" he starts.

"You can't read it," Alex says immediately. "It's just for me to keep track. We keep meeting in the wrong order, as you can probably tell. And rule seven clearly states, never let you read the book."

Michael swallows hard, and resists the urge to pick up the book, "It's your journal."

Alex just inclines his head, "Yeah, something like that."

"Your journal, that looks to be over a hundred and fifty years old, while you don't look a day over forty."

Alex gives him a sort of sheepish look, "Sorry, spoilers."

Before Michael can ask what he means by that, he hears the barrier give way.

"Michael go! Please!"

Michael lets the time lock go, shaking his head. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Alex says, voice tiny and coming from far, far away in time. "I have no regrets. You're going to change my life, Michael. You have to leave so you can do that."

"It feels like I'm never going to see you again," Michael says, trying to explain the way his chest feels like it's caving in.

"Oh, I wouldn't count on that," Alex says, smiling a little as he steps closer to the time lock. "Go. Run. And don't let this stop you from helping others if you can."

Michael takes one last look at Alex, standing there, being strong for Michael even though Michael can see how his hands are shaking.

He keeps staring until the tear in the time lock closes and all he can see is the statue from before, Alex forever locked in time.

He breathes out, closing his eyes tight and then turns and runs.


	2. interlude one.

Alex is sitting down in the pilot’s seat with his feet where his head should be, his head hanging off the edge of the seat as he skims through the read out input coming from his wristband, trying to figure out how to get it working again so that he can get out of Michael’s hair.

He knows it has to be getting annoying. This is the longest they’ve ever spent together in the right order since they’ve met, and Alex thinks that Michael likes it better when he’s older and more mysterious.

His wristband beeps loudly, three times in succession, and Alex moves his hand away, not knowing what he did to cause that before there was a flash of static electricity and then a rush of wind through the cockpit, and Alex hooks his hands on the back seat and pulls himself up, just as someone materializes right in the middle of the room.

He tilts his head as he recognizes Michael, but there is something different about him, and he doesn’t actually get it until Michael turns around and he can see his face, and he doesn’t really look all that much older than Michael does now, but there is something in his eyes that tells Alex that this Michael is much older than the Michael who is right now out in the nearest market place looking for a specific part to get the time engine running again.

“Hey there old fella,” Alex greets, when Michael doesn’t say anything, just continues to stare at him like he hadn’t expected Alex to be there.

Alex lies back and then swings his feet down and over the arm of the chair and getting to his feet, swaying a little when the blood rushes down from his head.

He shakes his head, and takes a step closer to Michael, who is still just staring at him almost like he's seeing a ghost.

Alex frowns, and studies Michael's face some more, "Are you okay?"

Michael's eyes go watery and Alex thinks that he's very much not okay, and if their lives are still the way that they are now, then there is a big possibility that Michael won't be able to actually tell him anything, but Alex doesn't really need to know what's going on to offer comfort.

He crosses the space between them and pulls Michael into his arms, digging his fingers into the bulky material of his jacket, and hooking his chin over Michael's shoulder.

Michael goes perfectly still for one crystal clear second where Alex freezes like he did something wrong, and then Michael melts into his hold, wrapping his arms around Alex's shoulders and pressing his face into Alex's neck, breathing in deeply.

Alex pushes him backwards after a few minutes, not entirely comfortable with the prolonged contact.

Michael smiles a little, but it doesn't exactly reach his eyes.

"I remember how skittish you were during this time," Michael says, voice rough but fond, taking a step back away from Alex and letting his hands fall to his sides.

Alex smiles back a little uncertain and licks his lips, "Is there a reason why you're here? And why you seem to have traveled through my teleport?"

Michael gets that look on his face again, the one like he's seen a ghost, and Alex blinks, feeling something like dread.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

Michael doesn't answer. He just steps forward, once again invading Alex's personal space and before Alex can ask him what he thinks he's doing Michael is kissing him.

Alex goes still for one second, not used to this. Not that Michael has never kissed him, but he seems to save that for ‘we just survived the end of the world’ type of situations. 

Michael pulls back a little brow furrowing, opening his mouth probably to ask a question that Alex definitely doesn’t want to answer, so Alex follows his lead and hooks his hands at the back of Michael’s neck and pulls him in for another kiss.

Michael falls into him immediately, making Alex stagger a few steps backwards before he hits the side of the console.

Michael parts their mouths, breathing in as he brushes their noses together, cupping Alex’s face in his hands and kisses him.

Alex feels a shiver going down the back of his spine and he pulls Michael in closer, dragging his fingers into Michael's hair and keeping him close.

Michael kisses him hard and rough and just on the edge of desperate, leaving Alex scrambling for purchase.

The kiss sinks through Alex in waves that leave him feeling warm and tingly and he pulls Michael in even closer, hitching a leg over Michael's hip.

He groans, the sound muffled by Michael's mouth, when Michael drops his hand, hot and damp to the back of Alex's thigh.

Alex's hands slide down to the collar of Michael's jacket, and he tugs wanting to get it off. They're wearing way too many clothes.

Michael squeezes his thigh lightly and pulls back, chuckling slightly when Alex whines in protest.

"I really miss you," Michael says in a voice low enough that Alex thinks he's not supposed to hear.

Michael kisses him again before Alex can ask anything, this kiss slow and chaste and entirely devastating.

He kisses Alex until Alex feels entirely lightheaded and like the only thing keeping him from floating in the air is Michael's touch, grounding him.

Michael pulls away slowly, dropping his forehead to Alex's, and Alex blinks his eyes open after a long moment to see Michael staring right back at him.

He feels the air catch in the back of his lungs, and he thinks a little recklessly that he wants Michael to stare at him just like that for the rest of his life.

Michael pulls away and then shudders a little. Alex opens his mouth to ask him what’s wrong, when there is a knock on the ship, the sound echoing dully through the room, and then Michael’s voice rings out.

“It’s me! Let me in!”

Alex looks to the Michael standing in front of him, feeling oddly dizzy at the thought of there being two Michaels, and he just smiles like he knows exactly what Alex is thinking, and then leans in close again, but instead of kissing Alex, he tilts over to the side, reaching out with one hand to press the button that lowers the ramp.

The ramp lowers and Michael presses a quick kiss to Alex’s mouth, and then presses down on one of the buttons on his wristband, and then he’s gone, leaving Alex’s skin tingling, and with the feeling like he was standing too close to a live wire.

Alex hears the doors to the bathroom sliding open as Michael walks past the cockpit and he breathes out shakily, trying to get his breathing under control. He breathes in and out, feeling hot and shaky and presses his fingers to his mouth, closing his eyes, and letting his head fall back.


	3. two.

The next message comes in almost three months after the first one. This one says,  _ atlantis cruise, near the freylan asteroid belt, i’m not entirely sure if this is going to work, but i really need your help _ followed by the space time coordinates.

Michael pretends to debate with himself, tries to remind himself what happened the last time that he answered a call for help from Alex, and is inputting the coordinates that he already has memorized before he can actually stop himself.

It’s a monumentally bad idea. Because first of all, he wasn’t exactly alone.

Michael had spent the last two weeks on the space station,  _ Earth LII _ , practically living in the corner of the only bar in the station, run by a human with a no nonsense attitude and the willingness to let Michael drink himself up a large tab only to break into his ship while he was sleeping and threaten to kill him if he didn’t pay up. She was also willing to take his ship in exchange and sell it for parts.

So Michael had made the ship jump in time and space and had convinced DeLuca, who refused to give him her first name, to forget all about his tab in exchange for a vacation that she could be back from the moment that she left.

DeLuca, who had told Michael that she would kill for a day off but she needed the credits more than she needed a break, hadn’t taken much convincing to join him after that. 

She also hadn’t taken much convincing to join him in his bed, especially after he took her to see the falling star waterfall.

DeLuca had only been traveling with him for a few days, and had asked for somewhere beautiful and calm where they weren’t likely to get shot at which had only happened once, but was apparently going to be a thing she never let him forget.

He’d promised drinks on the First Earth moon, in the year 2354, when the small solar flares were hitting the Earth’s magnetic fields, turning the space around it to brilliant colors.

But now there was a message from Alex, who he had seen get locked inside of a tomb with no hope for rescue, who was apparently his husband in the future, and Michael remembers him mentioning the Atlantis Cruise the last time they saw each other, so once again he lets curiosity get the better of him.

The coordinates lead Michael to the hangar all the way in the bottom of the cruise ship, and he sets up the camouflage before he moves, getting out of the pilot’s seat and darting a look at himself in his reflection in one of the panels.

His hair is a mess, but it always is, there really isn’t anything that Michael can do about that. And he’s pretty sure that he’s been wearing the same outfit since they left  _ Earth LII _ .

He stops himself from actually changing, wondering what the hell he’s doing, when the door to the bathroom slides open and DeLuca appears in the doorway, dressed up like she’s ready to party. “Have we landed?”

Before Michael can answer that, there is a knock on the hull of the ship, like someone is letting him know that they know that he's there.

"What was that?" DeLuca asks, moving closer to Michael.

"Slight change in plans," he says, and smiles charmingly when she turns to face him, a pissed off, slightly incredulous expression on her face.

He moves, walking down the corridor that leads straight to the engine room where the hatch to get into the ship is located.

Michael lowers the hatch, and DeLuca catches one of his hands securely in her grip, not wanting to leave the ship and head into an unknown place without support.

Michael just keeps going, walking down the ramp, and he finds Alex standing right where the ramp ends, with his back turned, dressed in one of those gauzy ultramarine and seafoam colored robes that seemed to be the go to vacation wear for the Elite during the 54th Century. Michael knows that the thread is gold and that the shimmer of the fabric comes from tiny jewels stitched into the actual cloth.

Alex turns around then, and the eyeliner is new, or well old since Alex doesn't look like he's out of his twenties yet, but it's new to Michael, and it makes his dark eyes look even darker and hypnotic. 

The robe cinches at the waist and leaves most of his chest exposed, a thin golden chain hanging from his neck, but not the necklace that he had shown Michael last time, because this Alex probably didn't have it yet.

Michael can feel the beginnings of a headache forming.

Alex is smiling, a bright thing that starts to dim when his eyes catch on where DeLuca is gripping Michael's hand even tighter.

Alex clears his throat looking away from them and messing with the belt cinching the robe to his waist, where a few bags are hanging from the belt, full of things from what Michael can see, along with a stun gun and what looks like the sheath for a sword without a sword.

"Hello Guerin," he says, lifting his hand up, and making Michael take note of his fancy leather wristband. He presses a few buttons and then the hatch starts lifting up.

Michael jumps down, dragging DeLuca with him.

"Glad you could make it. How are you at getting behind a triple locked door? I can usually manage but there is a flash fire response that will be activated incinerating everything inside if I input the wrong code three times, and well, I'm down to one and I really need to see what's inside of the room," he says as he begins to walk out of the hangar.

Michael scrambles to follow after him, but DeLuca stops him short.

"What is happening right now?" She hisses giving him an expectant look. "Who is that?"

"That's Alex, and it's all still a bit new to me, but he only calls me if he really needs my help."

DeLuca furrows her brow at him, "Is this like you getting involved in a shootout? Do you do things like this often?"

Michael opens his mouth to speak, when Alex does.

"Rule three," Alex says, and they both turn to look at him. "If there is a problem and there is something that you can do about it, then you should."

It sounds like something that Michael's mom would say and it makes his chest ache.

“Who are you exactly?” DeLuca says, letting go of Michael’s hand and moving to stand slightly in front of him with her arms crossed.

Alex blinks at her, and then looks at Michael, and gives him a look that clearly says,  _ I’m only being nice because she’s with you _ before he looks back to her.

“I’m Alex, Guerin and I, we’re friends, sort of,” he gives her a conspiratorial look, and DeLuca turns a glare on Michael before she looks back at Alex.

“He told me to send him a message if I ever needed help, and that he would be there for me, of course he neglected to mention that he would never appear in the right order.”

He shoots Michael a look that Michael can’t really understand, and then turns back to DeLuca.

“And don’t tell me,” he says, tilting his head and giving Maria a once over. “You must be his current traveling assistant.”

“Assistant?” DeLuca demands indignantly, turning to fully glare at Michael.

“Current?” Michael asks, looking at Alex, who gives him a look like he’s not going to explain Michael’s odd behaviour to him.

Before anyone can say anything else, there is a loud creaking sound, and then it’s like the artificial gravity goes off, and they all start to float in the air for a second.

Alex pulls something out of one of the bags hanging from his belt as Michael reaches out to DeLuca, who reaches out for him.

He catches her hands in his as Alex throws a disk on the floor, and bands of what looks like bright blue static electricity come out of the disk, wrapping around their waist and they fall to the floor.

“Temporary gravity drive,” Alex says, moving closer to the disk and motioning for them to do the same.

The artificial gravity takes a few more seconds to come back on, and Alex leans down and grabs the disk, which deactivates on touch.

“How often has that been happening?” Michael asks after making sure that DeLuca was okay.

“Twice yesterday, and every couple of hours today, the time between incidents has been getting shorter, and I think that whatever is happening is tied to what’s going on in the locked room I need your help getting into.”

Alex looks at him seriously, and Michael stares at him back steadily.

“Okay,” he says, nodding his head. “Show me the way.”

Alex gives him a brief beautiful smile, and then he turns and runs.

Michael looks over to DeLuca, who sighs and holds her hand out. He grabs her hand, and goes running after Alex.

-

"How did you manage to message me?" Michael asks as Alex stops them near the entrance to another hall, leaning over to make sure that they don't have unexpected company.

Alex turns to face him, giving him a slightly incredulous look, before he leans back against the wall and pulls out what looks like a pocket watch from one of the bags hanging on his waist.

He shows it to Michael, who notices that the design along the edges is the same as the clock piece that adorns the top of the mailslot.

"You gave this to me the last time that I saw you," he says. "You told me to open the watch and then think about the message I want to send and then the watch will glow gold as soon as the message is sent."

He looks down at the watch like he has a fond memory attached to it, and then shakes his head a little looking back at Michael.

"I wasn't entirely sure it was going to work," he continues. "It's the first time that I've used it."

Michael wants to know more. He thinks, if he puts his mind to it and really concentrates, that he could create a sort of telepathic link between the two timepieces, that automatically connects the two closest versions of the clocks, making it possible for Alex to send him a message from literally anywhere in time and space, no matter how near or far from the timeline he is.

Alex stuffs the watch back where he got it from and peers over into the hall again before he motions for them to follow him.

Alex motions him towards the door at the far end, and sends DeLuca to keep a lookout on the opposite side, while he watches back where they just walked in from.

Michael looks at the door, at the exposed panel on the side, which he guesses is Alex's handiwork, and the way that there is a light beeping orange in warning.

Michael moves to kneel down in front of the panel when he feels the artificial gravity malfunctioning again.

Alex moves quickly, tossing a disk at DeLuca who catches it and tosses it on the floor just like Alex did earlier.

The bright blue band of energy wraps around Maria's waist, and she drops to the floor, her clothes and hair still ruffling from the lack of gravity.

She smiles a little at that, and looks over to Michael who feels the temporary gravity catching a hold of him and turns to Alex who had thrown one of the disks onto the floor between them. 

Alex motions towards the door with his chin, and Michael nods his head and gets to work.

The gravity comes back and goes again two times before Michael manages to understand how the lock mechanism works.

He motions Alex over with a hand, and grabs his wrist when he's in range, lifting his hand up to the scanner.

"You're a guest here, right?" He asks, and then presses Alex's hand to the scanner before he can confirm, reaching out with his mind and making the technology think it's reading someone who is allowed in the room, and since Alex is already in the system as a guest, he just makes it think that all guests are allowed.

The door beeps three times in succession, and when Michael opens his eyes, he sees the light flash green and then the door opens with a swish.

"What did you do?" Alex asks, tugging his hand away from Michael's hold.

"The circuits are kind of telepathic," Michael explains. "I just made them believe that all guests are allowed and voila."

"Nice," Alex says appreciatively, smiling at Michael who smiles back at him.

DeLuca clears her throat loudly behind them, "If that was all you needed him for, we're running late for drinks on the moon, so-"

Alex snorts indelicately, and moves to face her, mouth open to no doubt to say something scathing back when Michael's eyes dart inside of the room.

"Please tell me that we're not here for the two dead bodies," Michael says, trying not to sound too freaked out.

"I could tell you that, but I would be lying," Alex says, moving to walk into the room before Michael. "Though I wasn't actually expecting to find them dead. It does narrow down the suspect list though."

He turns to look at Michael and grins wide, "Rule ten, always look on the bright side."

And then he's walking into the potential crime scene.

Michael looks at him, and then turns to look at DeLuca, who takes one look at him and scoffs, shaking her head like she can already tell what Michael is thinking.

He just grins at her as charming as he can and holds out his hand, DeLuca rolls her eyes and grabs his hand and lets him pull her into the room.

The door slides shut behind them, and Michael looks around the room while DeLuca lets go of his hand when she sees the view. There is one entire side that is made of transparisteel, and the ship is going slow enough that you can enjoy the stars and the occasional passing asteroid.

DeLuca stands too close to the transparent wall, leaning against it and laughing with delight.

“Wow, this is amazing,” she says, and Michael has to agree.

Though he frowns when he notices another asteroid passing by, but before he can make the observation, Alex makes a sound like he figured something out.

Michael turns to face him to see Alex crouched over one of the bodies.

“It’s difficult to tell because the antigrav spikes have moved them around a bit, but I think they were staged to look like a murder-suicide,” Alex says before Michael can ask, looking at him with a raised eyebrow, as though challenging him to refute his statement.

Michael doesn’t know enough about staging murder-suicides to actually tell him that he’s wrong, so he just takes a step closer, and tries to look as interested as possible, even though there is a part of his brain that is yelling at him that they need to call the police.

“The problem with that is that they were both shot in the back of the head-”

“-which makes murder-suicide improbable,” Michael finishes for him, crouching down beside Alex.

“Anything else you can tell without actually contaminating the crime scene?” Michael asks, maybe a little judgy.

Alex rolls his eyes, “I can tell that the person took them by surprise, so it has to be somebody that had access into the room.”

“How can you tell it was one person and that they took them by surprise?”

Alex points over to the first mate, and Michael swallows hard at the picture he makes, spread out on the floor, right next to one of the tables, blank eyes staring right back at him, the hole on his forehead making it obvious that that was the exit wound.

“That bullet went right through the back of his head, and if you look at the captain, the bullet is going almost right through his ear, like he was turning around to see who was behind them when he got shot.”

“That’s probably when he also pulled out his own gun,” DeLuca says, and they both turn towards her voice to see her holding a revolver in her hands.

Michael gets to his feet and takes a step towards her, when the door to the captain's room opens up and a security guard enters.

"Hey, what-?" He starts to say, and then there is the sound of a stun gun powering up, and then the guard is ducking out of the room.

Michael shoots Alex a look as the blue stun sparks hit the closing door.

"What?" He says looking indignant. "Rule four clearly states what weapons you'll allow, and let me tell you that list is extremely limited."

Before Michael can say anything, the door opens again, and the security guard shoots inside of the room.

Alex pushes Michael out of the way, and he shoots at the guard who ducks back out, and Alex follows after him, grabbing on to Michael's hand as he runs.

The guard moves backward swiftly not expecting that, and the surprise is enough that Michael and Alex make it past him and down the hall, but Michael hears the yelp as he catches DeLuca.

"Michael!" She yells out his name, and Michael moves to stop, but the guard shoots at them again, and Michael just follows as Alex tugs him along.

"Don't worry," he tells Michael as they go racing down the hall. "He'll take her to the security ward, and since she's not on the log, and is also, seemingly an accomplice, they're gonna question her to figure out where we'll be, but they won't hurt her."

Michael doesn't feel entirely reassured, “I’m more worried about the fact that the cruise ship is getting pulled into an asteroid belt with every antigrav malfunction.”

“I noticed that too,” Alex responds. “And I’m working on it, but one problem at a time, okay?”

Alex only slows down when they reach the elevators, and he pushes the button to go up.

It's only when they're inside of the elevator that Michael realizes that they're still holding hands.

He lets Alex go, who looks down at his hand, and flexes his fingers briefly, before he moves forward to push the button to get to the top floor of the ship.

"So you really are Elite then?" Michael asks, feeling morbid curiosity. "You don't really act like it."

Alex scoffs shaking his head slightly, "It's not that simple. But right now all you need to know is that I'm undercover."

That brings up more questions than answers. Michael hadn't exactly asked Alex what it was that he did for a living, but he figured that tomb raiding wasn't all that it was.

The elevator reaches their floor before Michael can say anything else, and Alex reaches for his hand again.

"We have to find someplace safe to lay low until they finish searching this floor and then we have to go to the control room and figure out what's wrong with the artificial gravity."

Michael pulls his hand out of Alex's grasp and Alex just shakes his head again before moving forward. 

"Follow me," Alex says and goes running.

Michael goes running after Alex finding this all reminiscent of the Beta Forest, but with a much better view, since the outfit that he was wearing right now left very little to the imagination.

Michael is too busy looking and not actually paying attention, which he knows he should be paying more attention to everything else, but the mystery of who Alex really was, and what he was to him was infinitely more alluring when Alex looked like someone who Michael could’ve met at the bar back home.

He bumps into Alex, who turns and pushes him backwards and towards a small alcove they’d passed earlier.

He pushes Michael into the small space and then pushes in close, boxing Michael in, and forcing Michael’s head down on his shoulder so that no one could see his face.

He’s looking behind them, but Michael feels a little bit dizzy, all he can see is the golden chain pressed to the skin of his neck, and all he can smell is Alex, something spicy and warm and utterly intoxicating.

Michael feels desire hook, deep in his gut, and he has to force himself to remember that this isn’t the right time.

Alex nods his head, breathing out and relaxing a bit, letting go of Michael and turning back to look at him.

Michael is still trying to convince himself that it’s a bad idea to open his mouth and bite down on the skin of Alex’s neck, so it takes him a second to realize that Alex has gone still against him.

His eyes focus on Alex, and his breath hitches when he sees the look on Alex’s face, and he tilts his chin forward a little, swaying a bit closer, and Alex jolts like he’d been stung, taking a few steps backwards and then shaking his head.

“I think I know where we can go,” Alex says, nodding to himself and then moves hurriedly down the hall.

Michael inhales deeply, and then follows after him.

-

"You called me your husband the last time I saw you," Michael says, trying to break the silence hanging heavy in the air.

Alex turns from where he'd been looking out of the window to give Michael a slightly startled, mostly delighted look.

Then he shakes his head a little, and then turns a half smile at Michael, something more flirty and open than he has been since Michael stepped out of his ship with DeLuca in tow.

"Is that you asking a question?" He asks, moving closer

Michael feels a little confused over how the question is phrased, but he nods his head, "Yes."

Alex's smile goes wider. "Awfully forward for someone who hasn't actually taken me out on an actual date."

Michael blinks a few times, before he shakes his head, "Wait no, that's not what I meant."

Alex just gives him a befuddled look back, and Michael sighs before he licks his lips and tries again. "Are we married in the future?"

Alex laughs a little, shaking his head, "How would I know? I've only known you for a few weeks. And even if I did know, I wouldn't tell you. It's against the rules."

"No," Michael says furrowing his brow. " _ I've  _ only met you a few weeks ago."

Alex gives him a look like he finally understands something, "You're still right at the beginning. That explains a lot."

Michael scoffs shaking his head because that actually explains nothing.

"Rule one," Alex says, and Michael looks back over to him when he hears the leather creak of the spine of a new book, and he sees what must be the same book Alex had with him in the forest that he refused to let Michael see, but a much newer version.

"Never answer a question. If I'm asking questions, then it's not time for me to know the answer."

He looks back to Michael, and turns the book in his hands so that Michael can see the first page.

"It's even written in your handwriting."

Michael can see that, and he can also see the beginning of rule two,  _ always trust that I _ -

Alex moves the book before he can read the rest.

"Sorry," he says, closing the book and putting it away in the inside pocket of his jacket. "Rule seven, never-"

"-let me read the book," Michael says with him, and Alex gives him a bright and beautiful smile.

"Right."

Michael inhales a little shakily, and realizes just how close they're standing together.

"Um," he starts, and Alex's eyes go from his eyes to his mouth and then back up and then back down, and Michael moves a little bit closer, like he's a satellite caught up in Alex's gravity.

"Guerin," Alex starts, voice low and rough. "About your-"

His what, Michael never finds out because the space cruise ship they are on jolts and sends them and everything crashing to the side like it's been hit by something big.

Which reminds Michael that they have to stop a space cruise ship full of thousands of people from getting pulled into the pull of an asteroid belt while also trying to figure out who murdered the captain and the first mate.

“That was definitely not a gravity malfunction,” Alex says, slowly.

"Okay," Michael says, licking his lips and exhaling roughly. "Saving a ship and solving the double homicide first, kissing later."

Alex laughs, almost like he can't help himself and rolls his eyes a little, moving in close to Michael and then giving him a look from beneath hooded eyes. "Maybe there will be, if you're really clever and figure it out."

He leans in until their lips are barely brushing. "But if I figure it out, you owe me a trip, and I'm not the sharing type."

Before Michael can figure out what he means exactly, Alex moves and opens the door to the storage room they'd ducked into to hide from the security of the ship that seemed to think they were the ones responsible for the murders.

"What does that even mean?" Michael asks, but Alex doesn't answer as he goes running out of the door.

Michael wonders how much of the rest of his life he's going to spend running after Alex, and then he goes running after him.

-

Michael uses the same trick he used to get them into the captain’s room to get them into the control room.

He's surprised that Alex doesn't walk in stun gun first, but he follows after him, and is even more surprised to find that the room is abandoned.

"It's all fully automated," Akex answers before Michael even asks the question. "The ship is supposed to follow a set course, but someone is definitely knocking it off it's automatic orbit," Alex says, nodding towards where one of the panels on the wall was open, with the wires spilling out.

"That's what the gravity malfunctions are all about," Michael interjects, as they move towards the open panel. "But where exactly are they trying to drop the ship?"

Alex makes a humming sound, "You go check the nav gauge and I'll figure out whatever this is," he says motioning the open panel and pulling out what looks like a pair of sunglasses from a bag and sliding them over his face.

Michael just shakes his head and turns towards the center of the room, where there is a giant console that he's sure is where the nav gauge should be.

Something sparks and Alex hisses in pain, but Michael ignores it to read out the information on the console.

He pulls up their current coordinates and the ones that they should be on and frowns, and then pulls up a map of the area.

At the same time, Alex makes a puzzled sound, “It seems like the antigrav problems have been programmed to stop entirely, for some reason.”

“Probably because the ship got where they wanted it to go, but there is a problem they probably didn’t see, or are hoping to use to their advantage-”

Michael is cut off before he can finish, when something, most likely an asteroid, hits the side of the ship, knocking them to the side and sending an alarm through the room, the proximity bells ringing.

The ship is hit twice more before it stops, and the alarm shuts off, the sudden absence of the bright red lights disorienting Michael for a second.

“Unless the plan is to destroy the ship and kill everyone on board, I don’t think that they took the asteroid belt into account,” Alex says, surprising Michael when he sounds like he’s way too close.

"I think they did but no one can plan for a spontaneous black hole," Michael says a little haltingly, looking at the way it light up on the map. “The proximity alarms were going to trigger an override any minute, and will try to get us as far away as possible, but the blackhole did shift the orbit of the asteroid belt.”

“Okay,” Alex starts to say. “That’s one problem solv-”

He’s interrupted by a rapid beeping coming from his leather wristband, and he looks at it a little incredulously as he reads out what it’s telling him, and then he’s grabbing a hold of Michael and wrapping his arms around him.

“Hold on to me,” Alex says in a commanding voice that has Michael obeying immediately, wrapping his arms around Alex’s waist.

Alex presses a button on his wristband that emits three beeps and Michael can feel the shudder go through him as the teleport function works to transport them both.

Michael breathes in, feeling that breathless tingly feeling, like all of his atoms are vibrating too fast, and then he breathes out and they’re standing in the same spot, but there is something that Michael can’t explain that feels different.

“Did we travel in time?” Michael asks, even though he can feel that that is not the correct answer.

Alex doesn’t answer, and Michael turns to look for him and finds him standing on the other side of the room, turning the dial that makes the transparisteel go clear, and Michael feels his breathing hitch when he can just make out the dark swirling spot that is the black hole.

It is the only thing still in motion. The asteroid belt, which is constantly moving in an elliptical rotation, is completely stopped.

"The good news is that we didn't travel in time," Alex says, tugging his sleeve up and lifting his arm, with the flap on his wristband open, a light flashes like it's taking a scan.

"The bad news is that the entire quadrant is trapped in a temporary time freeze," he continues, and then looks down at his wristband when it beeps.

"The worst news is that the black hole is still growing, and will most definitely pull us into its gravity in about twenty minutes," he says, turning to look at Michael, a look on his face like he's  _ enjoying  _ this.

"The best news is, I know what to do."

Michael raises his eyebrows expectantly, and Alex gives him a sheepish look, "You are definitely not going to like it."

-

He's right.

Michael stares at Alex as he finds and starts getting into a space suit.

“There has to be something else we can do,” Michael says, for maybe the twentieth time in the last ten minutes, while he’d rigged up a device, that was supposed to cause a sonic pulse strong enough to dissipate the black hole since it wasn’t natural or spontaneous, but manufactured, using parts they’d taken out of the ship’s engine.

Alex turns to face him, the helmet tucked beneath his arm.

“This will be the easy part,” Alex says. “I’ll teleport out there and set off the device and teleport back. The difficult part is going to be how we’re going to deal with the time freeze, but one problem at a time.”

“I still think that we should reconsider-” Michael starts, and Alex just shakes his head again.

“We don’t have time to come up with another plan, and don’t ask about getting to your ship again, we won’t make it in time, and the teleport function doesn’t do too well with short hops.”

Alex takes a step closer to him and sets a hand on his shoulder, giving him what Michael thinks is meant to be a reassuring smile, “This is our best plan.”

Michael exhales roughly, carding fingers through his hair and making it a frizzy mess, “Are you sure there is no rule that says you have to listen to me?”

Alex laughs, a clear happy sound full of delight, and he rolls his eyes and pushes Michael backwards a little.

“I’m going to be fine,” he says, grinning wide and charming, like he thinks that he’s invincible. “And if I’m not. I’ve got you to save me.”

Before Michael can even think of a response to that, Alex is putting the helmet on his head.

He lifts up his arm where he'd strapped the wristband over the suit, and clicks a few buttons before nodding to himself decisively, and he grabs the device from the table and sends Michael a brilliant smile.

"See you on the other side."

And then he's gone in a flash of static electricity.

Michael just blinks at the spot where he was at for a few seconds, before he runs over to the still transparent panel.

It’s now as he stares and waits for Alex to appear, that he remembers that time runs slower the closer to the pull of gravity you were, which meant that there was a real possibility that the black hole would have gotten bigger by the time Alex got to his destination.

Michael rubs his hands through his hair, and he hears Alex’s voice echoing in his head,  _ I’ve got you to save me _ , and he remembers the quiet devastation on Alex’s face when he’d realized that there was no way that Michael would be able to get him out of the tomb.

Michael forces himself to think and he looks around the room a little helplessly. What he needs is a way to get to his ship. The COSMIC could compensate for the gravitational pull of the black hole enough that Michael would be able to save Alex, but the elevators were stuck since they were stuck in a time freeze, but there had to be another way.

He walks over to the control panel and pulls up the blueprints of the ship, and he almost yells in excitement when he sees that the hangar is right below the control room, and there is a system of vents separating the two that leads right down.

He barely gives himself time to think it through before he’s grabbing the makeshift laser saw and moving to where there is enough space that he can carve a hole into the floor big enough for him to pass through.

He drops inside of the vents, very nearly hitting his head on one of the bigger metal tubes, but he manages to drop to the bottom, making loud clanging echoing sounds.

He looks down to either side and he sees a few feet to his left where there is a hole where the vent drops down, before continuing.

Michael barely wastes time hoping that the schematics are actually updated before he scrambles for the drop, having to duck and crawl beneath a giant tube, but he gets to the hole, and drops his feet down first.

It's too dark to make out how far down it goes, but Michael is pretty sure that it goes all the way down.

He sets his hands down on either side of his hips and lowers himself into the hole, bracing his feet against the sides as he does.

It takes him much longer than he thought it would to get to the bottom of the vent, but he doesn't have to create his own exit, since there was a grating at the right height for him to jump down from, which was a plus.

He races to the COSMIC who he can feel starting up right along the edges of his consciousness as soon as he gets close enough.

His ship is psychic  _ enough  _ but only if you're within range.

He nudges the controls and by the time he's running up the ramp, that starts to go up before he's even half way up, he can feel the engines humming beneath his feet.

Michael already knows that he can't get an exact lock on Alex's location, but he can get a lock on the watch.

With time still all around him, it’s easy to pick Alex up, appearing outside by the blackhole, in five minutes.

Michael tries to lock in on his coordinates, but the ship refuses to get that close to the blackhole.

Michael scrubs his hands through his hair, and then snaps his fingers.

If he can get close enough, maybe he’ll be able to teleport Alex on to the ship. The COSMIC might rebel a little bit, and he’s never actually done it before, but there’s a first time for everything.

Michael inputs the new space time coordinates, and he feels the time engine revving up before there is a flash across his line of sight, and then the proximity alarms start blasting, letting him know that he’s too close to a singularity point, but Michael isn’t paying attention to that, his gaze is already looking out through the transparisteel trying to find Alex.

He sees sparks of static electricity, coalescing around a figure, and even at this close, Alex looks like he’s moving in slow motion.

Michael can see that his arm is outstretched, and there is a small dark spot that he hopes is the device, just out of his grasp, like he’s reaching for it, but it’s more likely that he had thrown it.

Michael looks back down to his console and starts inputting the sequence to start up the teleport.

The proximity alarm gets even louder with a voice that tells him that using the teleport this close to the singularity is a really bad idea, so Michael shuts it off manually, and then inputs the coordinates that popped up when he searched for the watch, and presses enter.

He knows that it’s a mistake when he turns around towards the dematerializing pad and a whoosh of wind blows through the room, along with sparks of static and he remembers that Alex was surrounded in static electricity, meaning that he was possibly still mid jump.

“Fuck,” he hisses, and turns towards the console, but it would take too long to input the stop sequence, and even if he did manage to stop the teleport.

Michael doesn’t know what this is going to do to Alex, but he does know one thing. He’s not going to let him go through it alone.

Michael walks forward decisively, grabbing a temporary air mask that has maybe fifteen minutes of air, but will cover his whole face, which is what he needs the most. Any freezer burn anywhere else will have to be dealt with by the nanonites when he gets back.

If he gets back.

He places the mask over his face, and it unfolds, metal panels molding to his face as the helmet wraps around his head.

He barely takes a breath before he steps on to the teleport, into the misty swirl of black and static appearing right in the middle of the pad.

Michael inhales sharply and his heart beats once, and everything is cold, and there is no sound, and he feels a terrifying, sucking sensation that seems to be trying to pull him apart limb from limb, but when he opens his eyes, all he sees is Alex, staring right back at him from behind his helmet, eyes too wide, mouth open like he’s saying something, and then his heart beats again and he’s standing on the teleport pad, Alex standing in front of him.

“What have you done?” he asks.

“I was trying to save your life,” Michael says a little defensively.

Alex gives him an incredulous look, and then they’re back outside, and the black hole seems to be expanding. Alex’s face is turned towards it, and then they’re back on the ship, and the COSMIC’s alarms are blaring, the voice saying something about a temporal anomaly.

“How is putting yourself in danger saving my life exactly?”

Michael exhales roughly, “This wasn’t the plan initially. But I had to do  _ something _ . This is my fault. If I didn’t try to teleport you while you were obviously still mid jump, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”

Alex is shaking his head but before he can say anything, they’re back outside, and there is a bright light shining out of the corner of Michael’s eye. Michael turns to look at it, and then Alex’s hand is on his face, turning him back to face him.

“Don’t look at that,” Alex says as they’re back on the ship. “At least one part of this plan is going without a hitch. And you shouldn’t feel so guilty right now, I think having the both of us is stabilizing the anomaly faster than if it was just me, since the jumps to here are getting longer. But just for the record, I would’ve been able to figure out how to stabilize myself. I took classes and everything.”

“Then you should’ve known better than to-”

Alex rolls his eyes, and cuts Michael off, “We can argue about who was right later. I think I have a plan.”

Michael opens his mouth to say something scathing about Alex’s plan making abilities, but they’re outside again, and this time, Michael feels himself getting dragged into the gravitational pull of the blackhole.

He reaches for Alex, who wraps clumsy hands wrapped in thick padded gloves around his biceps, but they're both getting dragged along.

The tugging sensation abruptly vanishes and they both drop to the ground on the teleport pad.

"Okay," Michael says, feeling like he can't expand his lungs properly, frozen fingers clenching the thick collar of Alex's space suit. "We're probably going to die once we jump back out there so your idea seems to be like the best thing ever."

Alex doesn't waste his time reminding Michael that he hasn't told him the plan yet.

He just reaches up with one hand and presses down on one of Michael's hands. 

"You're going to have to put your hand on top of my wristband and press down on the yellow triangle twice. It will connect to the last time I used the teleport, when we were in the control room. The thing is that in order to make the jump we'll need to harness the energy output from the blackhole."

Michael doesn't even have the time to tell him that that's the worst idea he's ever had.

They're outside again, and Michael ignores the awful tugging to move his hand.

He passes his fingers over the buttons on the top of the wristband, and even though he can barely feel, he recognizes the pointy edges of a triangle.

Michael presses down twice, and at the same time, the sonic pulses emitting from the device go into overdrive and it feels like an explosion of electricity and ice detonates, the sonic waves washing over them both and then it's gone.

Michael feels the shudder go through him as the teleport function works to transport them both.

Michael breathes in, feeling that breathless tingly feeling, like all of his atoms are vibrating too fast, and then he breathes out and they’re standing in the same spot, but there is something that Michael can’t explain that feels different.

“Did we travel in time?” Michael asks, and gets the horrible feeling of deja vu.

"Actually yes," Alex replied, and that's when it hits Michael.

They're alive. Alex's crazy plan actually worked.

"No more blackhole, and it also fixed the time freeze problem," Alex says, grinning widely at Michael, who realizes abruptly that they are standing way too close, and that Alex isn't wearing the space suit.

"I love it when that happens," Alex finishes sounding breathless, and he's really way too close, and Michael is only made of flesh and bone.

He kisses him, fitting his hands on either side of Alex's neck as he leans into the space between them and kisses him, a hard, almost desperate kiss, tinged with relief and deliriousness, because they actually did it.

They're alive.

The second their lips touch, something clicks deep inside of Michael, and as Alex kisses him back, Michael feels something warm and heady settle in his chest, a feeling that makes him think of home, a feeling that terrifies him.

Michael only realizes that this is the first time that he's kissed Alex when he moves back from the kiss and sees the way that Alex is staring at him.

Michael lets him go quickly, and steps back, almost too fast, almost stumbling to the floor.

Alex's lips are parted, and he looks like he still looks a little dazed, and Michael is thinking that maybe this is actually the first kiss from both of their perspectives, when the door to the control room slides open.

Michael turns towards the door as Alex turns away, looking back at the panel that they had opened up to figure out how to stop the gravity from failing.

Michael is a little surprised to find himself looking at DeLuca and what looked like another guest, Elite as well, wearing a version of the outfit that Alex was wearing, but hers was definitely more modest.

"Alexander, dear," she says as she walks into the room ignoring Michael completely.

"I bumped into this young lady having a bit of trouble and she mentioned that she was a  _ friend _ of yours?"

Her tone is entirely too flirty especially to be used on someone who not only has no interest in women, but who looks to be about half of her age.

Michael feels a flash of bitter green jealousy, which gets worse when Alex just turns towards her with a too wide grin.

"Not that kind of friend, Magda," he answers, offering her his arm.

She takes it, grinning, and fluttering her lashes, and Michael really wants to say something, but then DeLuca is standing right in front of him.

"How could you just leave me like that, on a strange alien cruise ship, without any money or way to communicate with you, if it wasn't for the fact that I heard her asking about your  _ friend _ I never would've found you-"

Michael grimaces at the way she says friends in the same intonation as Magda did, and then he sighs.

Michael hasn't known DeLuca that long, but he knows that if he doesn't interrupt her, she's probably going to keep telling him off.

"I knew they'd probably take you to the security office, and I would've come back for you. We had to stop the ship from crashing, and then there was a blackhole-"

"What?" DeLuca asks, looking a little horrified at the prospect, but mollified over the fact that Michael was planning to come back for her.

"It's not a problem anymore. Alex-" he turns around to find that sometime in the last couple of minutes Alex had left the room with Magda.

"Guess he had to go back to work," DeLuca says, sounding a little derisive, and Michael really wants to know what that's all about, but instead he moves to walk out of the control room.

"Yeah," Michael says a bit absently. "We still haven't figured out who the murderer is."

And then he stops walking, and DeLuca bumps into him cutting off the question that she'd been about to ask.

He hadn't really thought twice about it, following Alex into certain danger. There was a very real chance that they could've died and while some part of Michael, getting bigger and bigger with every meeting is curious, he thinks that maybe there have been enough life threatening experiences for today.

He turns back to DeLuca, who is still dressed up in the outfit that she'd picked out for their outing, and while Michael really hasn't had much dating experience, he thinks that he's let Alex crash this date for long enough.

He turns back to DeLuca, who gives him one of those looks he used to get when he would ask if she would accept favors instead of credits.

"Let's go," he says. "I'm sure we can still make the reservations."

She gives him an incredulous look, "You actually made reservations?"

Michael didn't, but he has a time machine. 

He just starts walking towards the hangar, and tries to stop himself from thinking about Alex needing more help.

He's sure if something else major happens a future version of himself will come to help.

As it was, Michael was beginning to feel slightly like a noose was tightening around his neck, like Alex was an inevitability he'll always have to deal with, as he doesn't know how he feels about that.

He doesn't know how he feels about  _ Alex  _ let alone this entire situation that feels way too out of control.

DeLuca catches up to him, "So we're not staying to figure out who the murderer is?"

Michael shrugs, "That's Alex thing. He asked for my help with the door, and I helped him, and then some. I don't think there's any other reason that we should stay any longer."

DeLuca is silent for so long that Michael thinks she's not going to speak, but the second they get into the elevator she stands in front of him.

"I would think that you would stay for your  _ friend _ ," she says, giving him a calculating look, like whatever he answers to the statement would make or break whatever it is that they have.

The only reason that Michael answers is because she said friend in the same way as before.

"He's not my anything," Michael replies. "I barely even know him."

"Then why are we here?" She asks like it's something that's bugging her when Michael has already answered the question.

"Because he asked for my help," Michael responds, feeling too tired all of a sudden.

He leans back against the elevator wall, and DeLuca stays quiet.

The elevator dings, reaching the bottom floor, and Michael pushes away from the wall, walking past her.

"You can call me Maria, by the way," she says as he walks by, and Michael just shakes his head and keeps walking.

DeLuca, or well, Maria, catches up to him and tangles their fingers together, and swings their hands a little as they make their way to the hangar.

Of course, Alex is standing right in the middle of the hangar, holding out his stun gun, the button on the side glowing red, telling Michael that it's on the highest setting, and standing across from him is a woman, holding a laser blade to the throat of a man who has to be the either the second mate, or whoever it is that is in charge if both the Captain and the First Mate are indisposed or dead as the case was.

"You don't have to do this, Magda," Alex is saying. "I promise that once we make it to port your people will be free to leave."

Magda, who not only looks twenty years younger but is also blue, stares at Alex suspiciously.

"And on whose authority do you guarantee this?”

“Mine,” Alex responds resolutely, taking a step forward. “You have my word as Captain Alexander Manes, Intergalactic Space Force and Ambassador of New New Earth.”

Maria makes a low impressed sound, and Magda scoffs disbelieving, until she realizes that Alex isn’t kidding.

She shakes her head, laughing a little, her grip going slack around the blade in her hands, “I guess I wasn’t the only one playing a part.”

Alex shrugs, but doesn't rise to the obvious bait. "I'm giving you my word. Now, will you turn yourself in?”

Magda just inclines her head slightly, and then takes a step backwards, dropping her hand to her side.

Two guards appear out of nowhere and arrest her, taking her out of the hangar, followed by the man she’d been holding hostage.

Alex moves to walk after them, and Michael steps into his path, dragging Maria with him.

Alex looks a little surprised to see him, but he grins a little, eyes flickering down to their joined hands, and back up.

“You’re still here,” he says, managing to sound surprised and pleased and a little pissed off all at the same time.

Michael ignores all of that, "So Captain wasn’t just a fancy title?”

Alex scoffs a little, shaking his head, and he shrugs, “I used to be military. Until someone saved my life and showed me that there was more to life than serving god and galaxy.”

He smiles at Michael, something soft and amazed, and Michael swallows hard, not knowing what to do with that, with the way that Alex looks at him.

It was the same back when they first met, maybe something more fond in his gaze that came with the amount of time he’s known Michael, and it settles something prickly in the pit of his stomach.

“You gave that woman your word,” Maria says, interrupting Michael’s thought process. “If you’re not military anymore, how will you keep it?”

Alex’s gaze flickers to Maria, and he grins, “Oh, the me that is still living in this century, somewhere on New New Earth is still a military officer. He’s still got three years to go before he defects.”

He turns towards Michael as he speaks, and winks at him as he walks around them and out of the hangar before either of them can say anything in response.

Michael can feel Maria looking at him, but instead of looking back at her, he starts walking forward towards the COSMIC who he can feel impatient along the edges of his consciousness.

Maria lets go of his hand as they get inside of the ship, heading towards the sleeping chamber, while Michael walks to the console room, turning the ship on and warming up the engines.

He smooths his hands across the surface of the console, feeling the cool buttons beneath his hands, and hisses when a loose piece of metal from one of the edges of the panels cuts into the skin of his palm.

Michael moves his hand away from the console to study the cut and see if he needs the nanonites or not, and he stares as the small cut in his hand heals over, almost like nothing happened.

Michael frowns wiping at the small bit of blood, and he lifts his hand up to his face.

The COSMIC buzzes with questions, but before Michael can fully concentrate on that, he feels Maria’s hands on his shoulders, pushing him backwards so she can sit on his lap.

“Now, you told me that you were going to teach me how to drive this thing,” she says, smiling brightly at him, and Michael just smiles back, pushing away the questions to the back of his mind.

He can deal with that and whatever it means later. He has a feeling that he has nothing but time to deal with it.

**Author's Note:**

> i've been working on this fic for the better part of the year, and i have most of it planned out, and part two is already written, and i will be posting it once i finished writing part three, so please bare with me, you can find me here [on tumblr](https://iwontbeyourmedicine.tumblr.com/)


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